Category Archives: Obituaries

Andrew Nathaniel White III, 1942–2020

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Andrew White

Andrew White—saxophonist, oboist, bassist, educator and scholar—passed away on Wednesday, November 11. He was 78 years old. White is best known to Weather Report fans for playing electric bass on Weather Report’s third album, Sweetnighter. He also played English horn on the band’s previous LP, I Sing the Body Electric.

When I think of Andrew White, the first phrase that comes to mind is “one of a kind.” There truly was no one quite like him in the jazz world, if not the world at large.

For nearly fifty years he ran Andrew’s Music from the same unassuming house in Washington, D.C. He never entered the computer age, never had an email address, and didn’t use a cell phone. If you wanted to contact him, you either had to call his home (which invariably resulted in getting his answer machine, one of his few nods to the modern age), or you had to write him a letter and send it via postal mail.

Whenever I wrote him, I addressed him as:

Mr. Andrew White
President, executive producer, producer, editor, collaborator, transcriber, copyist, recording supervisor, arranger, accountant, publicist, typist, engineer, composer, performer, author, manager, booking agent, package handler, mail boy and janitor

I got these titles from his books. It’s how he described the various roles he undertook while running the one-man shop that he used to produce and sell his own records and publications. He billed himself as “the most voluminously self-published artist in the history of the music business (so I’ve been told),” and his catalog listed thousands of items for sale from Andrew’s Music.

White was recruited by Joe and Wayne to play electric bass on Sweetnighter because Joe had seen him with the Fifth Dimension on television. Zawinul thought White could provide the funky underpinnings that he wanted for Weather Report’s new music. Before the Fifth Dimension, White played bass in Stevie Wonder’s band. These gigs paid well, and they bankrolled his other activities, including making his own records and faithfully transcribing hundreds of John Coltrane solos.

He also sold a transcription of his bass part on “125th Street Congress.” “That’s one of my biggest bass transcriptions in terms of sales,” he told me in 2017. “And every time Columbia puts that record out, people look on there to see who the bass player is, and it’s me. And then they start calling me. And I say, well, if you want to play like me, you buy that transcription. I’ve been selling that transcription for thirty years.”

White was a music scholar, graduating cum laude from Howard University in 1964 with a major in music theory and a minor in the oboe. He continued his academic career at the Paris Conservatory of Music, Dartmouth College, and the State University of New York, and became the principal oboist for the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra in 1968. But he also had a bawdy sense of humor that was unfiltered by the norms of polite society. One of the forty-odd LPs he self-produced was Far Out Flatulence: A Concerto for Flatulaphone, which consists of 56 minutes of White farting into a microphone.

While jazz was White’s primary love, he was never fully accepted as a jazz artist of stature. In a 2019 Jazz Times profile, White said, “My whole career started out, even in 1960 when I came to Washington, with a severe handicap, which is, I was told very early on that I had no commercial viability,” he says. “My saxophone sound has too much resonance in it, and I was told it would not register well on recording tape, so I couldn’t make good records-and they wouldn’t even know what to do with the records anyway. So I’ve been off in the corner ever since. But nobody ever said I couldn’t play.

“Nobody was knockin’ on my door, so I knocked on my own door, because I had the resources from [professionally performing] rock ‘n’ roll. There are other fellas in my ilk like Coltrane and Eric Dolphy and Ornette [Coleman], they probably didn’t have the resources to do it themselves, and if they did who knows what we could have had from those cats, because they were working under what they call professional supervision. I’ve done all this myself, so I’ve never had anyone tell me what won’t sell,” he laughs in his deep, distinctive guffaw. “I put it all out myself and it’s done well for me, but then I’m not ambitious either. I’m happy with the sales I get, which wouldn’t impress somebody else who would tell me what won’t sell and who probably wouldn’t put it on the record. And who knows how much music that Coltrane had, and all those cats, who never got to even play it in the studio because somebody told them, ‘Well, we don’t need this.’

“I was considered an oddball just like they were. I think Coltrane and Eric and Ornette, to a lesser degree, they didn’t have so much resonance in their sound that it wouldn’t register well on tape.”

If that lack of acceptance hurt Andrew, you wouldn’t know it by talking to him. He was a cheerful man with a big, hearty laugh. He conducted himself with the satisfaction of having done things on his own terms. I will miss him.

Leon “Ndugu” Chancler, RIP

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Leon “Ndugu” Chancler passed away last night after a battle with cancer. He was 65 years old.

Of course, Weather Report fans know Ndugu as the drummer on the band’s fifth studio LP, Tale Spinnin’. His involvement was pure serendipity. The band was rehearsing for the album at the same time that Ndugu was recording a Jean-Luc Ponty album just down the street. One day they all emerged from their respective studios at the same time and met up on the sidewalk. “Ndugu, what are you doing in the next two days?” Zawinul asked. Chancler said he was wrapping up his session with Ponty, but would be free the following week. “Come and do a session with Weather Report,” Joe suggested. It went so well that Zawinul wanted to hire him in the band, but Chancler was committed to Santana and turned him down.

Ironically, his initial reaction upon hearing Tale Spinnin’ was that he didn’t like it. “I didn’t like the drum sound,” he told me in an interview. “That was my first reaction. The reason being is, I didn’t feel like, at that point, I didn’t have the Weather Report drum sound. I played great, but I thought I had the session sound versus the Weather Report sound. And all it was, I was used to hearing non-session drummers play with Weather Report, and I was used to that sound and not a more polished studio sound. I really liked it, but at the time I thought it was very different from Weather Report.”

Like many fusion drummers of the 1970s, Ndugu was an extremely versatile drummer, well versed in all styles. He began his professional career as a teenager and toured Japan and Europe with Miles Davis when he was 19. After spending much of the ’70s on the road with the likes of Miles, Santana and George Duke, he began concentrating on studio and production work, playing on a diverse range of albums including Herbie Hancock’s Mr. Hands, Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bad, Kenny Rogers’ We’ve Got Tonight, and Frank Sinatra’s L.A. Is My Lady. His production credits included work with Tina Turner, Santana, George Duke, The Bar Kays, and the Dazz Band. His credits are vast and include innumerable movie soundtracks and television shows.

Ndugu was a big proponent of music education and for many years was a professor at the University of Southern California’s Thorton School of Music. Peter Erskine, who is the Director of Drumset Studies at USC, posted a remembrance of Ndugu on Facebook. I don’t think he’ll mind if I reproduce it here.

Ndugu’s passing leaves the world a poorer place, with a giant hole at USC’s Thornton School of Music where he taught for so many years. I can’t think of anyone who made bigger musical marks and in so many different genres — George Duke, Miles Davis, Carlos Santana, Weather Report, Michael Jackson, Patrice Rushen, plus countless gigs as the drummer in jazz festival all-star bands … I know I’m leaving out many, many names. But it was in his work as an educator and advocate for technical achievement that set him apart. Ndugu was tireless in his insistence that drummers know their rudiments. That combination of old-school strictness with his open musical mind (plus experience) resulted in a steady stream of excellent players coming out of his studio, and a world-wide group of inspired drummers who benefitted from his gospel. He long-served as a vital conscience to our drumming world.

I’ll miss him on campus. I’ll miss him at PASIC. I’ll miss his exuberance, both on and off the drums. I’ve been a fan since his 1975 recording of George Duke’s “I Love the Blues, She Heard My Cry” album … first time I ever heard such hip drumming like that. It was some new stuff. On second thought: Nudugu left the world a far greater place. We are all going to miss him. Condolences to his family, friends, and everyone who knew him. RIP, Ndugu, and thank you for all of the passion and the music.

Alphonse Mouzon, RIP

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Alphonse Mouzon, Weather Report’s first drummer, has passed away. He was 68 years old. In September he was diagnosed with Neuroendocrine Carcinoma, a rare form of cancer, and began treatment in late November. Although his prognosis was dire, he remained hopeful and upbeat throughout. My understanding is that he suffered a massive heart attack on Christmas day. I last spoke with Alphonse in April 2015. The first thing I remember about it was his voice: He had a rich, broadcaster’s voice, like he belong on radio.

Alphonse was one of those people who was born to be a drummer. He started banging on things when he was a toddler in Charleston, South Carolina. His family didn’t have much money, so he made his own drums out of boxes and tin cans. He used to tap dance on the front porch and play his homemade drums, earning pocket change. “People would throw nickels and dimes,” he recalled. “I never got any quarters!” In high school, he won the South Carolina state scholastic drum competition four years running, earning a scholarship to Florida A&M University. But he elected to forgo A&M in favor of New York City, partially on the recommendation of one of his idols, Cannonball Adderley. Arriving in the Big Apple at the age of 17, he quickly got his own place and found work with the Ross Carnegie Orchestra. He also studied medical technology at Manhattan Medical School and worked as a hospital orderly. Alphonse was a determined young man.

Shortly after moving into his own flat, he knocked on the basement door of the building across the street, where he heard a big band rehearsing. It was the Ross Carnegie Orchestra, a society band in which musicians from the best known jazz bands of the day moonlighted. Alphonse managed to sit in for a tune, and Carnegie was so enamored of his funky groove that he hired him as “second drummer” and roadie. From there, is career advanced rapidly. He took lessons from Bobby Thomas, whom he heard one night with pianist Billy Taylor. He managed to sit in on a tune with him, too. “I remember playing with him and calling my mom and saying, ‘I played with Billy Taylor! I played with Billy Taylor!'” His relationship with Thomas later landed him the gig as the pit band drummer for the show Promises, Promises.

“I guess I was playing in a place called Small’s, a jazz club in New York, and Bobby came to see me along with Harold Wheeler, who’s now the music director with Dancing With The Stars. Harold was 25, I was 19, and they introduced me to him, and they said, oh, they want me to do this show. Bobby was the drummer for Promises, Promises, but he wanted to go across the street to a TV show with David Frost, so they needed a replacement. So he brought Harold Wheeler to my gig. And that’s when I got that job at 19 years old. I was the youngest kid at that time on Broadway.”

Bobby Thomas was also a childhood friend of Wayne Shorter’s, and it was through Thomas that Alphonse got the call to record on Wayne’s album, Odyssey Of Iska, in 1970, which led to him being Weather Report’s first drummer.

After Weather Report, he played with McCoy Tyner, Larry Coryell’s Eleventh House, and recorded his own funk-rock albums, including Mind Transplant with guitarist Tommy Bolin. He eventually played with or recorded with a virtual who’s who of the music industry. He also made an appearance in the Tom Hanks film, That Thing You Do. He was known for his extravagant clothing, especially in the seventies. “I was Mr. Fashionisto,” he told me. “Because Miles Davis was a fashion statement, a Fashionisto. Also, Roy Haynes. All the cats. So I had my own stuff, too, with my leathers and stuff, and platform shoes. I took it more rock.”

A gofundme campaign has been set up Alphonse’s children to help defray funeral expenses.

RIP, Alphonse. We will miss you. Here’s a clip from 1971 in which Weather Report performs “Seventh Arrow” and “Umbrellas” from their self-titled debut album.

Victor Bailey, RIP

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It is with sadness that I report that Victor Bailey passed away today. I first had the opportunity to speak with Victor in February 2014. I had been trying to connect with him in order to do an interview for some time. I’m not sure what finally caused him to respond to this stranger pestering him about Weather Report, but after he did we had a good hour and a half conversation. Back then he was still in relatively good health. His legs were failing him, so he used a scooter to get around on. I found him to be an extremely articulate and passionate man. When we talked, I initially joked that he was probably tired of talking about Weather Report. “No, actually, not in this day and age,” he said. “I’m a professor at Berklee College of Music and it needs to be talked about. You’ve got a generation of kids now who say they are fusion fans, and they don’t know who I am. They don’t know who Weather Report is. Some of them know who Jaco is. A couple of kids know “The Chicken.” It’s like playing saxophone. You learn some Coltrane, or you learn some Charlie Parker. If you play bass guitar, you learn something by Jaco. Kids don’t know who that is, don’t know who Weather Report is.”

Of course, Victor came into the band following Jaco’s departure. Those were big shoes to fill for sure, but he looked at it differently. “I don’t think I every really looked at it like I was filling somebody’s pair of shoes,” he once said. “I felt like I was making a new pair of shoes.” I always considered Victor to be a combination of Alphonso Johnson and Jaco. I mentioned that to him and he said, “Absolutely. Thank you for saying it. Nobody ever says that. Everybody always, when they mention influences, says Jaco, but Alphonso is in fact just as much an influence on me as Jaco. And he was an influence on Jaco himself. A lot of what Jaco did, with the fretless, with effects, with chorus and delay and distortion, some of the phrasing… a lot of the things that he did, Alphonso was a direct predecessor to it, and it never gets mentioned.”

Victor was one of Joe’s favorites and he’s the only musician with the distinction of playing in all of Joe’s bands: Weather Report, Weather Update, The Zawinul Syndicate, and the WDR Big Band with Joe Zawinul. When I spoke with him in 2014, he said, “Oh man, listen, I’ve had a blessed life. I’m not even religious at all, but if there’s a god and people are blessed, I’m blessed. I’ve done exactly what I wanted to do my entire life and continue to do so. And nothing anybody says changes anything. No criticism, no… anybody… I have always done and continue to do exactly what I want to do. I’m a really lucky guy.”

Below is a video Victor made a few months after he told me that. He will be missed.